Archive for the ‘summit garage’ tag

Racers roll up to the line as an afternoon sea mist rolls in at last year’s Race of Gentlemen. Courtesy of David Carlo Photography.

In the modern day of the muscle machine, we thumb a button on a key fob, a magic chariot opens and the reins of hundreds of snorting horses are placed dutifully in our hands. Indifferently, we lounge on leather seats, sealed in a climate-controlled Elysium, sipping our caffeinated ambrosia while every musician ever recorded awaits our command to play. To us, traveling inside these vehicular vaults—cared for by electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes and a host of other electro-nannies—the pavement may as well be another country, and going fast has become easy and safe.

It wasn’t always thus. Once, closer to the beginning of things, when mankind was only just gaining equal footing with the forces of nature, and animating iron with fire no longer required a wizard’s touch (though a certain giftedness helped), everyday mortals tested their ingenuity, craftsmanship and mettle against the gods of speed in the flat, elemental places of Earth. On the dry lakes, salt flats and ocean-plowed beaches of this heroic age, drivers like Ernie McAfee, Teddy Tetzlaff and Alexander Winton left their marks on the world of the muscle machine, some like Vic Edelbrock, Stuart Hilborn and Ted Halibrand quite literally so.

But wind-in-the-teeth, hammer-and-tongs racing is back. On October 3-5, The Race of Gentlemen – sponsored in part by Hemmings Motor News – will run on the beach in Wildwood, New Jersey. The race is open to all makes and models of cars, trucks and motorcycles, foreign and domestic. Bodies must have been manufactured before 1939, parts before 1953, and motorcycles must be tank-shifted.

Here’s a selection of some of the men and machines you can expect to see compete at this year’s Race of Gentlemen.

It might be easy to hate someone who, in his garage and using spare parts, built the spidery four-banger that handily beat you and everyone else, save a flat-track race bike, at last year’s event. Luckily, Mike’s such a likeable fellow, and his hard work in fabricating such a top-notch racer and then in dragging it the 3,000 miles from his home in Washington state to the event, is really irrefutable. And if you think you’ve got him beat this year, race rules and his own competitiveness dictate something new.

Bryan is the younger half of the father-and-son team racing at TROG this year. If his father couldn’t avoid the gene for a predilection toward prewar power, this fourth generation scion was certainly doomed. “Bryan, growing up with my obsession around him,” Scott explains, “well, I guess he didn’t have a chance.” Now Bryan co-owns DeLuxe Speed Shop with his dad. He started his early-style dry lakes racer about five years ago with just a body and has since tracked down all the right stuff.

The elder half of the father-son duo racing this year at TROG, Scott is a third-generation old-car enthusiast, and he owns DeLuxe Speed Shop in Commerce City, Colorado, with his son Bryan. Specializing in era-correct traditional hot rods, Scott proved that he knows what he’s doing when his car roared to a V-8 class win at last year’s Race of Gentlemen. “I’m sure this year,” he chuckles, “I have a target on my back.” In spite of his past victory, he’s still humble. “It’s an honor to be included in this race.”

Back in 2009, Artie purchased something very intriguing from under a tarp. At the time, he had no idea that the car was, in fact, Sam Alperti’s 1933 Eastern Outlaw Championship-winning White Phantom.The restoration was in good hands, as Artie has run his own full-service garage—complete with CNC and machine shop—in Summit, New Jersey, for three decades. “So far I have only been able to run the WP on dirt ovals,” says Artie, “so TROG is a great opportunity to get out of ‘left-turns-only mode’.”

The White Phantom is an authentic Sprint car with an Essex frame and chassis powered by a 216-cu.in. Ford Model A engine with Winfield speed equipment and backed by a Model A three-speed gearbox. Courtesy of Jeanne Cushing.

Mike Barillaro

Mike dubbed his drive the Walker Special in memory of Dave Walker, a close friend who had helped Mike’s brother build the car they raced at last year’s Race of Gentlemen. Dave died in December from a freak accident. “He really liked track-nosed cars,” Mike explains. Mike, 36, and his twin brother, Jimmy, own Barillaro Speed Emporium in Knoxville, Tennessee. Their father, a former drag racer, ran a speed shop in Connecticut, and he got them interested in cars. “He taught us many of the skills we use today.”

The Walker Special is a 1926 Model T narrowed 6 inches on a modified Model A frame and powered by a ’37 “Tin Side” V-8 with 9.5:1 Edelbrock heads, Eddie Meyer 2×2 intake, dual 97s and a ’48 F-1 toploader. Courtesy of Brent Myers.

T.J. “Throttle Jockey” O’Grady Jr.

Based in Long Island, T.J. is expecting his first child a week before the race. If baby Saige is late across the “finish line,” T.J.’s dad, an experienced racer, will drive for him. T.J. himself is no stranger to the strip, having regularly turned 7-second ETs in the quarter when he was just 19. He’s looking forward to a rematch with Mike Santiago who beat him in the first round at last year’s TROG. “He was running an overhead conversion on his banger. This year we are going flathead banger to flathead banger.”

Part menagerie, part three-ring circus, all race. With its goggled drivers and prewar machines grumbling around on the beach sand of Wildwood, each Race of Gentlemen is a phantasmagoria straight out of the mind of Mel Stultz. Lucky for us, Mel’s grasp of what once was and his vision for what could be again, is impeccable. To see Mel in action, directing his band of merry volunteers and fellow Oilers car club members, he is, at turns, general, jester, gear head, process artist and promoter, and his enthusiasm for what’s possible is infectious.

We’re constantly amazed at what shows up in the Hemmings Nation Flickr pool, and in the last few weeks, Hemmings Nation members have dropped some mightily noteworthy pics into the pool. We’ll start with papfiesta’s “backseat driver,” a mid-1960s Cadillac with a shortened passenger area, but a lengthened hood. Can we correctly call this a shorty?

Troy Paiva continues to show off his nighttime junkyard photography in the pool, but one of his latest shots, of the Summit Garage in Altamont, California, intrigued me. As Troy noted, the garage is still there, and from the looks of it on Google Maps, still operating.

Ever seen a ’78 Ford B-100? Unless you’ve traveled extensively in Mexico, probably not. Hugo90 continues to surprise us with foreign variations on vehicles we never knew existed.